6 comments:

Daniel Hannan is another MEP who says his piece in clear, unequivocal terms--and is equally correct in my poor, dumb, conservative mind: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGKkfKhbrDM&feature=related , for example.

As to Mr Farage's beef about referenda, he's spitting into the wind, as I'm sure he knows full well. This is, after all, the same gang that, when France and The Netherlands--via those evil referenda (which is likely why the EU was so fearful of a Greek referendum or an Italian election)--rejected the then EU Constitution that was under proposal, went ahead, anyway: it's why the EU has no Constitution, but a collection of opaque Treaties of Lisbon, agreed to by governments and not by the people.

I don't know about 'spitting into the wind'; I think he's putting down a marker. You're right about how the EU has operated, but the collapse of the Euro offers an opportunity to reassert democratic legitimacy. That's the real focus of his remarks here.

Farange may be putting down a marker (we'll see how strong a one after today's Merkel-Cameron meeting), but it's a wind-blown one, to pester the metaphor a bit.

Here is one view of the path to saving the EU, courtesy of Spiegel Online International: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,797626,00.html . I think the paper has accurately described the situation, but I think their solution is no more than tilting at (wind-blown (!)) windmills. The EU cannot stand with the heterogeneity extant among 27 nations of too-different culture and mutual baggage, or among 17 euro-zone nations with the same too-much heterogeneity and baggage.